Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Launch Control Center is a four-story building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, used to manage launches from Launch Complex 39. It contains offices, telemetry and tracking equipment, and a series of control rooms called firing rooms. In February 2022 it was renamed the Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center.
The first launch managed from the LCC was the unmanned Apollo 4, designated Apollo-Saturn 501, on the 9th of November 1967. The first crewed launch from the LCC was Apollo 8 on the 21st of December 1968.
The center was renamed in February 2022 after Rocco A. Petrone, a former director of launch operations at Kennedy Space Center. Before that renaming it was known simply as the Launch Control Center.
The Launch Director is responsible for making the final "go" or "no go" decision for any launch, after polling the relevant team members. Eight different individuals served as Space Shuttle launch directors between 1981 and 2011.
An automated system called the Ground Launch Sequencer controls the countdown from T-minus 9 minutes until launch. A manual hold can be implemented between T-minus 9 minutes and T-minus 31 seconds; after that point only an automatic cutoff is available, which recycles the clock to T-minus 20 minutes and typically results in a scrub and a 24-hour turnaround.
SpaceX leased Firing Room 4 inside the LCC and used it as their launch control center for Launch Complex 39A. The company operated out of that room until August 2023, when it moved into its own facility just before the Crew-7 mission.